Hamas:
The Violent Mind
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Nard and saffron, cane and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all the chief spices. A garden spring, a well of living waters, streaming from Lebanon. (So 4:14-15)
In this mini-series about the relationship between the Bride and Bridegroom in the Song of Songs, we’ve viewed an amazing level of prophecy of the millennium in the Song. In the journey, we’ve seen how Scripture projects the reality of the millennium: there are people who have prepared, and people who haven’t.
Last week we took a boat ride from the South up the River of Life with the “fish” from the nations. Although there are those among these nations who survived the tribulation that precedes the millennium, they weren’t completely prepared to serve the Kingdom of Heaven. They yet needed instruction on how to approach The Holy One and survive the entry into His gates in Jerusalem. Although Zechariah prophesies that they will, it is Ezekiel and John (in Revelation) who tell us how they prepare to stand before a Presence that can kill flesh-and-blood who appear in presumption before Him.
It is not as though The Holy One wants to destroy flesh-and-blood that He created to fellowship with Him. It is simply the reality of who He is relative to what He created. To stand in His Presence, He uses a variety of “space suits” so that we can draw close without harm from the intense glory. In a sense, it comes down to glory, which is beautiful.
When we acquire His glory through obedience, putting on the “space suit” that allows us to occupy that space near Him, it will only protect us insofar as we acknowledge that He is the Creator and bestower, the instructor and source of that glory. When human beings use the glory of Elohim to draw attention to themselves, diverting praise to themselves or twisting/omitting the instructions, then as a mere creation stealing the praise of Elohim, they can die. That’s just a rule of the universe, like earth’s gravity. Nothing personal.
Because the Father created us for fellowship with Him and longs for fellowship with us, then imagine how angry He is when those gifted with His Word in this world fail to teach others how to put on that space suit. Whether just a basic resurrection to eternal life or resurrection as a royal priest, Bride, and pillar in His Presence in the Temple, the Father wants to bring as many as possible as close as possible to His Presence.
Last week we took a close look at the prophecy of Song of Song 4:13, and this week, we progress to the next verse which is similar:
· Nard and saffron, cane and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes [some, balsam oil], with all the chief spices. A garden spring, a well of living waters, streaming from Lebanon. (So 4:14-15)
These verses pair the spices for the incense service of the Temple with their location: the Garden of Eden where four rivers flow. The prophetic element is that in the millennium, the Heaven and Earth once again “marry” as Elohim intended, the perfect spiritual Heaven touching the purified place of the earth. In Yeshua is this perfect picture of Heaven and earth “married.” The Land of Israel, particularly Jerusalem and Judah, will achieve an unprecedented level of holiness so that the third heaven descends:
· “It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,”
Nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate”;
But you will be called, “My delight is in her,”
And your land, “Married”; for the LORD delights in you,
And to Him your land will be married.” (Is 62:4)
The Holy One Himself will provide the living waters from the Garden spring of Eden. This may explain how the miraculous River of Life flows from the Temple Mount, first east into the Kidron Valley, then south to the Salt Sea, the Arava wilderness, and then to the Red Sea. At that point, the purified, holy earth of the Temple and the living waters of “Lebanon” above have kissed, producing healing waters that become a type of interstate waterway for nations to come up and worship at the feasts as Zechariah prophesies (Zech 14:16-19).
Here, however, is the dilemma, and perhaps it explains why the journey begins on the waters:
“Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of hosts; and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them. And there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts in that day.” (Zech 14:21)
How this ritual purity is acquired is the subject of Vayikra (Leviticus). It contains the holies of the space suit. Personal ideas of what constitutes holiness is nothing but filthy rags. The Father’s prescribed preparation is engaged with obedience. While those nations learn, they have the benefit of the cleansing water of the River of Life. Water is one of the things by which humans may be purified for service and appearance in holier places of the Presence. Fire is another.
If the household cooking pots in Jerusalem and Judah are pure enough for pilgrims to the feasts to boil their sacrifices in, then that is an incredible level of holiness! The fishermen along the River of Life and the trees of righteousness, shoots from the “Branch,” the Tree of Life, have an important job to do in preparing the noble ones among the nations to make pilgrimage to the Holy City. They are a royal priesthood:
· But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light... (1 Pe 2:9)
“Excellencies” is Strong’s G703, which is “moral excellence, purity.” Its cognate in Hebrew is hod, or glory, as used in Zechariah 6:12-13:
· Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD: Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne...
Teaching the nations who approach the proper purity of preparation for the Holy City and while in the Holy City falls to Yeshua’s disciples who “fish” the River of Life for those approaching the Holy Land. They explain the moral excellence of glory. Rebellion against the Word of Adonai or even ignorance of the Word of Adonai has consequences: violence and death. There is no bold approach to the Throne of Grace without repentance in hand as a sacrifice of the personal will.
First, however, a royal priesthood much teach the fish what sin is, what obedience is, what impurity and purity are, and even the principles of Shabbat rest. Failing to live a life of moral excellence disqualifies one from the royal priesthood just as failing to wear all eight garments disqualifies a high priest from service. We teach both by example and instruction in the Word. This leads to a purification of the mind, which the rest of the body will follow. Once the mind is straight, all the limbs will be straight, for the mind is connected to the heart.
Not to teach the moral excellence of the Torah, particularly purity and Shabbat, is literally to do violence to the Torah and the One Who gave it. Adonai desires people to enter His sanctuary, and he uses the righteous, His royal priesthood to do so just as He used the Levitical priesthood to teach the twelve tribes of Israel. Instead, they taught hamas:
· “Her priests have done violence [hamas] to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they hide their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” (Eze 22:26)
· “Her prophets are reckless, treacherous men;
Her priests have profaned the sanctuary.
They have done violence to the law.” (Zeph 3:4)
חָמַס ; hamas; to be violent; by implication, to maltreat:—make bare, shake off, violate, do violence, take away violently, wrong, imagine wrongfully.
The teaching of the Word is a River of Life that flows from the holy mountain.
The Levites' cities were to be a place the tribes could immerse in the purity of the Word so that they could ascend the Holy Mountain at the appointed feasts. These are the times His Presence is the most manifest.
Melekh Shlomo’s palace was called “The House of the Forest of Lebanon.” It was located adjacent to the Temple Mount with its own special entrance to the Temple. Water will flow from the Temple Mount in the millennial kingdom. As our verse in the Song of Songs says, it flows from “Lebanon,” a euphemism for the buildings of the Temple and the royal palace, which was called “The House of the Forst of Lebanon”:
· He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon; the length thereof was an hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits, upon four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars. (1 Ki 7:2)
· And all king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver: it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon. (1 Ki 10:21)
The forty-eight assigned cities of the Levites were so that each tribe had access to Torah teachers, or “wells,” of Torah knowledge like they did in the wilderness with the Rock, Messiah. Symbolically, that is four wells of Torah per tribe, and four is symbolic of the Ruach HaKodesh (remember your Workbook One lessons?). It’s not just Torah, it was to be LIVING Torah that purifies the mind, leading to purification of the body. Likewise, there are four rivers that circle Eden.
The Hebrew word for ”brain” or “mind” is mach, or moach, which is where we get machshev, for computer: situated place for a “brain.”
מחַ = 48
• For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ. (1Co 2:16)
• Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. (Ro 7:25)
It was the Levites’ job to instruct the twelve tribes in the excellence of the Torah so that the twelve tribes could approach in a proper states of holiness and enjoy Him as He wanted to enjoy them. Human minds tend to rebel against wearing the space suit because it pinches our flesh! When our minds are purified and healed by the Living Water of Yeshua, the LIVING Word, we acquire Yeshua’s mind, which desires holiness and life.
If we reject the living instructions of our Creator, we do hamas, violence, to the Word of Elohim our Creator, killing and destroying, trampling and mutilating, twisting and omitting, descending deeper and deeper into a cult of death. The violence humans do to His Word, they also do to fellow human beings, for having put themselves in the place of Elohim, human beings become drunk with blood. The mind becomes a stench, a desolate field of death, not the spiced fragrance of the blessed field of Eden. Hamas stands between the thirsty and the well of Living Water. They drink death, but are never satisfied.
On the other hand, a royal priesthood instructs the nations about the purity of the Living Word. They are swimming instructors in the River of Life, assisting eager swimmers to heal their minds while they learn. When they attain Jerusalem for their fragrant appearance before the Holy One in HaMakom, The Place, that space suit will fit just fine!
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